Wednesday, April 30, 2008

The Worst Cable

If you live in the Greensboro area, you likely have Time Warner Cable. And for this I am truly sorry. Seriously, I don't think they know what they are doing. AT ALL. This is a little bit of a belated post (as most of mine are lately...I swear, I will catch up one day!) but I felt it was worth putting out there...as a warning, as amusement, in hopes that someone from TWC might actually see it and want to improve their customer service. Yeah, I know...not so much.

Anywho...since I work from home, my parents quickly found that this was beneficial to them in that I am, well, home. So they promptly decided to have all kinds of things fixed up and delivered to the house since I would be here and could be available. No problem, might as well and it's the least I can do for them letting me live at home right now. Well, one of these things was their wish to upgrade the living room cable to DVR. We already have HD DVR in the basement (my Dad's lair) and we had standard cable in the living room on the main floor. But they had some coupon or something or other and thought, what the heck. So my Mom takes it upon herself to swing by TWC to sign up and pick up the DVR box. First mistake...Mom can barely find the on/off button on the TV so asking her if she needed to regular or HD box was way beyond her. So the salespeople someone convince her she has an HD TV (we do not). So...first problem. We finally get the correct box and I go through all the steps to set it up and it doesn't seem to want to work. I call the customer service line and patiently wait to speak to someone so they can schedule someone to come out to the house. Great. If only it were that easy...

The next day a nice guy comes to the house and quickly determines that we don't have a strong enough signal coming to the house and someone needs to come put an "amp" on the house or something like that. Well, naturally, that requires a different person to come out on a different day. Okay, sure. So 2 guys show up a day or so later and it doesn't take long to see that they have no idea what they're doing and clearly received no direction before arriving at our house. I had to tell them what the first guy told me and then they fiddled with the cable box on the outside of the house and seemed to get things working. Yea!! More like, yeah right. The guy tests a couple channels, tells me we're good to go and they leave. I later realize we don't get any channels above 50 which may as well be all the channels if we cannot watch channel 55, HGTV (seriously, the most watched channel in this house). So I have to call back and schedule ANOTHER appointment. The same guys come back the next day and are like, "Huh, I think we need to put an amp on it." Sigh!

This is where things get really fun...this is the day of the Carolina/Duke basketball game. The absolute most important program to be viewed in this house (unless we go all the way in the Big Dance that is). I stress this fact to the cable dudes and they assure me they'll get it fixed. I think, "Well, as long as the basement's okay, we can watch it down there on the bigger TV anyway." So the guys keep going in the basement because that's where the cable actually comes into the house. So they eventually come upstairs, annouce it should work and we check it on the TV in the living room and it really does work! Yea!! So after they leave, I get to thinking, "I better check the basement TV because if that one isn't working, Daddy will have a fit." So I go downstairs...and the cable won't work! I frantically call TWC back and tell them that this is a 5-alarm fire emergency and they better get back TODAY to fix it. So muuuuch later in the day, they show back up. Well, turns out the doofus put the amp on the TV in the basement (why???) and blew the box out. And now he doesn't have another box. And it's like 6 p.m. and he can't get one until tomorrow. And thanks to the fiddling he has just done since he came back to the house, the cable doesn't want to work in the living room. Yeah...we ended up watching the game at the kitchen table on the small TV. I cannot tell you how unpleasant that was. Good thing we won the game!

Bear with me, I know this story is long but it's because they had to keep coming back!! The dude came back the next day (by this point I was starting to think of him as my new besty friendy) and he replaced the box and mercifully, everything now seems to be all right and in working order. Whew! So after a half a dozen trips and about 3 cable boxes, they were finally able to give us our simple upgrade. :-P

Thursday, April 17, 2008

List Update


Hey, look at me! Blogging again already!!


I was just looking back over my last post about my list of things to do while still in NYC. Well, obviously, I'm no longer there and felt I should update anyone interested in what I accomplished (and unfortunately didn't get to). I'm quite pleased to say that I did everything except for 1 & 2. I feel bad that I didn't get to these two things, but not all hope is lost because I know for sure that I will be back to NYC and can try again to do these things. And I did do Top of the Rock a few times so I did get some great views over the city (and hey, even a view of the ESB!). Besides, I'm a little glad that I left a few things left to do in NYC. When I get back up there, it's going to be very interesting. I definitely feel a kind of ownership now...like, I'm not just some hokey tourist, I actually LIVED there! So I feel I have a funny claim to the city...but still having some tourist-y things to do is fun too. Can't wait to get back up there and see everyone and everything! I have no idea when it will be...maybe not until the hubby gets back. But we'll be there, for sure!

Long time, no blog

Wow...so I have truly been neglecting my poor blog. So much for it being a nice way to capture my adventures in NYC and beyond! Well, I guess I can still get the "beyond" part. But I will definitely need to back-track a bit to get all the highlights in here. Honestly, I had kind of forgotten about my little blog until I went to dinner last night with some old high school cronies (we're trying to plan our 10 year reunion...where has the time gone??) and they were all talking about their blogs and it made me remember this poor little posting.

So...I'm going to really try to be better about posting from now on! Not so much tonight, but keep checking back, there will be more to come! ;)